You wrote, "...opportunities to practice this kind of love - especially in situations where it doesn’t come naturally... ...What challenges do you face in trying to live out this kind of love?"

Here is the first stumbling block, the first and the essential challenge to living out agape love: It just doesn't come naturally...

"The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." - 1 Corinthians 2:14, Berean Standard Bible, BSB.

Mankind has a fallen nature and unless a person is born again by the Spirit of God, he or she will continually fall back into the fallen nature and its self-centeredness. Like gravity or the air we need to breathe, this is an inescapable fact of life. the fact is agape does not come naturally and neither can it be forced.

"For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:6-8, BSB.

Jesus taught that we must be born again. Read John 3:1-21.